Getting A Pure White Background

Getting a pure white background can be tricky. The key is to have the light be even and bright. Yep that is the tricky part! If the light is uneven you will end up with  shades of grey.  A light meter would have been handy but at the time I didn’t have one. So trial and error it was. I set up an old white sheet as my background. No need to iron it. I would blast it with light and  the wrinkles would magically disappear.  I set up my flash with the umbrella attached,  pointed it  at the sheet and took a few pictures. When reviewing the images in the camera it was set to show the blown out ( brightest) parts . So when most of the screen was blinking I knew the background would be white. A softbox was used to light the daffodils and a piece of poster board for fill on the other side. I also set the vase of flowers on a piece of glass. I wanted a reflection of the vase in the image. I used my 70-300mm lens to zoom in and focus on the vase and flowers. For the image of the bottle I used one flash directly behind the bottle pointed at the sheet. The bottle was clamped to a background stand my camera was on the tripod and I used my shutter release cable to take the image.

So how was this on a budget? Well I didn’t buy a light meter. I went to my moms and picked the daffodils. The vase, bottle and sheet I already had.  The image below of the set up was taken with my cell phone so I could show my mom how I got the image of her daffodils. So get yourself a white sheet and start shooting! Best part no ironing required:)www.vickieszumigala.com

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